"Ce que tu as écrit à propos de mercredi dernier, ce mercredi si richement nôtre, m'a réjoui le cœur"

Autograph letter in German signed by Rainer Maria Rilke to actress Else Hotop, to whom he writes under her stage name, Elya Maria Nevar. 2 1/2 pages written on a bifolium watermarked “Sackleinen”. Autograph envelope enclosed, addressed to ‘Else Hotop’ bearing postmarks dated November 3, 1918.Published in Freundschaft mit Rainer Maria Rilke, 1946, p. 35.

A precious piece of Rilke’s correspondence, reflecting the delights of an enchanted afternoon spent during WW1 with the actress Elya Nevar, one of his most fervent admirers.

“The truly active and creative period of young Elya’s and Rainer-Maria’s attachment to each other is the beginning of their friendship, with the discovery of the unknown, the surprise of affinities that are revealed, and, finally, what is so important in friendship as in love, this intimacy that begins during a Bavarian autumn, while the tumult of war rumbles in the distance” (Marcel Brion).

This letter belongs to the beginnings of his relationship with the young Elya Nevar, “guardian of his solitude” during Rilke’s troubled Munich period, where he experienced an inspiration crisis between “The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge” and the “Duino Elegies”. We are just a few days away from the end of WW1. After brief encounters the previous year, Rilke had rediscovered Elya (Else Hotop) during the summer of 1918, on the theater stage. Every evening, he came to admire the actress nineteen years his junior, who played the role of a medieval princess in a piece inspired by a 15th-century epic poem. She borrowed her character’s stage name, Elya, by which Rilke addresses her.

Their correspondence began a few weeks earlier, after an intensely poetic note by Elya who greatly admired his Book of Hours (1905): she “regards him as THE poet, indestructible, admirable, and accepts everything from him, including his indifference” (Rilke, Catherine Sauvat). Romantic and cerebral, the poet makes up for his absences with a beautiful declaration of affection in this letter: “even if I was put off by many things from the intention of writing to you immediately at your first letter, my attention has been close to you at many moments and it is so whenever you think you need it, dear child”. In spite of this, they would spend moments together which soothed Rilke, afflicted by a deep creative crisis and affected by the war years.”I would have asked you to send me the book with your notes — but look: when I got home late at night, it was on my table... And since you’re already familiar with the language of seals in our exchanges: you who are sincerely attentive.

“His mention of seal language alludes to one of their ritual Wednesday afternoon meetings at Rilke’s house; the poet had gifted Elya a removable seal, which could alternatively house a set of ten double-sided sigils, engraved with symbols and written captions: “We spent an afternoon playing like children, drafting the twenty seals on a sheet of drawing paper, and Rainer Maria wrote the text underneath in his delicate handwriting. The book with my notes [mentioned by Rilke above] was sealed with a sigil depicting an ancient mask with the inscription ‘Lift it up!’” she later recalled. True to her art, the actress had chosen the actor’s mask as her symbol.

Rilke himself had a fascination for seals; he used the greyhound coat of arms inherited from his Czechoslovakian grandfather to seal his correspondence; and, toward the end of his life living in Muzot, he wished for these same arms to appear on his tombstone and accompany him into eternity. The poet was grateful for this delightfully quaint activity alongside his medieval princess, fond of his eminently medieval Book of Hours: “What you have written about the previous Wednesday, this Wednesday so richly ours, has gladdened my heart”.

As Marcel Brion observes, it was in her company that Rilke found light-hearted abandon, “that atmosphere of gentleness, cheerfulness, of comradeship without ulterior motive he savored with Elya”. The poet also alludes to his musical outings and his admiration for the German-Danish soprano Birgitt Engell: ”I thought for a moment of going to Madame Hoffmann-Onegin’s concert on Tuesday, but for many evenings I’ve been out late into the night, and I’m out again today and tomorrow. So it should be an evening of sleep; and then, as Birgit Engell is still acting in me, I don’t feel like accepting another singer any time soon, even if she is the most excellent. If you don’t insist on hearing her both evenings, perhaps you’ll stay with me on Wednesday for the evening?”

A wonderful letter full of tenderness to the woman who revealed “the joyous and playful man” (Marcel Brion) in Rilke during the dark years of the war.